There are some fine WW1 films about, the king of them being 'All Quiet on the Western Font' (released in the same year as this) and there are many powerful films centered around war in general. GW Pabst, here in his first sound film so this was a first for him and the viewer, was a great director, very influential in the silent film era and in German cinema and especially good when it came to editing, his direction of his actresses and the realism of the stories. They were my main reasons for seeing.

'Westfront 1918' is not one of my favourite war films, while not having much inherently wrong with it as such. It is also not one of Pabst's very finest or one of his most important or a major influence in cinema. 'Westfront 1918' is still very good and is very well made and powerful, Pabst does not have a misfire here and he is not off form (far from it),he's just done even better which says a lot for how brilliant he was at his very best.

Story-wise, 'Westfront 1918' is quite slight and very simple.

Also some may find the point of view from the characters, especially with the universal brotherhood, on the naive side, but that is not an invalid point of view as quite a number of soldiers went into war not knowing what they were letting themselves in for.

However, Pabst does admirably on the directing front. Inexperience with sound shows at times (other silent film directors fared a lot worse though, DW Griffith with 'Abraham Lincoln' anyone?),but he shows clear command and understanding of the material, the point of view is not unfocused and technically this is typically accomplished work. 'Westfront 1918' is a fantastic looking film, the low tracking shots in the war scenes being hugely atmospheric and the editing is typically seamless for a Pabst film. The music is suitably haunting and the film is written with sincerity.

Despite the story not being perfect, it is still emotionally moving, especially at the end, and has a lot of power and the anti-war sentiment with resonate with everybody feeling exactly the same. The war scenes are gut-wrenching. The acting is very good in well defined roles.

Overall, very good. 8/10

"Westfront 1918: Vier von der Infanterie" or "Comrades of 1918" is a German black-and-white sound movie from 1930, so this one was made shortly before the Nazis came into power. The director is Georg Wilhelm Pabst again, one of the most successful filmmakers of his generation. I don't know any of the cast, but writer Ladislaus Cajda, who adapted the novel here for the film, worked with Pabst on several occasions and has his name attached also to a couple big films from that era. "Westfront 1918" runs for slightly under 90 minutes, at least in the version i saw. i see other runtimes here on IMDb and these may either include lost segments or just fewer frames per second.

The movie is about a group of German soldiers during the days of World War I. War is depicted here as something gruesome, something that needs to be avoided at all costs because of the pain and casualties it brings. You can imagines that Hitler and his gang did not like this approach at all as they identified with war as something heroic, something inevitable in order to bring Germany to glory. From that perspective, it is certainly an interesting watch, even if Pabst obviously couldn't know yet what would happen in the next 15 years. Being banned by the NSDAP is quality an attribute that makes a film worth seeing, but sadly it is just the approach that is right and interesting. I cannot say I cared for the story here or for any of the characters in particular. Overall, just not a good watch. Thumbs down.

This is a movie that actually doesn't really have a main plot-line in terms of following one main character and have a clear beginning, middle part and end. Just like war there is no logic in it and things just happen within this movie as the movie moves along. It puts you right in the middle of things and shows you the madness of war.

It handles all different kinds of aspects from the war. It doesn't only show the situation from the viewpoint of the young soldiers but it also focuses on the family and girls back home. It doesn't do this by featuring it too prominently but picks out an handful of minor characters and just a couple of sequences to get the message across. This works out really well and it doesn't feel melodramatic or anything like that. Modern movies can really learn something from this.

But of course foremost the movie gets set in the trenches, somewhere in France. The movie is filled with some WW I battle sequences, which are all surprising good and authentic looking. Guess lots of materials and places from WW I were still around during the production of this movie so they did not have an hard time recreating the look and feeling of the battles fought out in the trenches.

It was the first sound movie from Georg Wilhelm Pabst and this shows. Nothing too major, it are just some little things showing you that 'talkies' hadn't been around yet for very long and Georg Wilhelm Pabst wasn't also too experienced with it yet. He pretty much shot this movie in the same way as he would had filmed a silent movie.

The movie is of course also original with the fact that it tells the story from the German point of view. While watching this movie you don't actually ever give you the feeling you're watching the movie from the 'evil' and bad point of view. All parties are more or less victims within a war and things are not as black & white as they always seem.

Simply a real good and effective WW I production, especially when considering that it got shot way back in 1930.

8/10

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